


Choosing Sides

by emungere



Category: Leverage
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-21
Updated: 2007-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot is a fallen angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choosing Sides

**Author's Note:**

> sparky77 wanted Leverage wingfic, and then this happened.

FBI storm troopers swarm up the stairs like shiny black beetles. Hardison is on the seventh floor. Things went wrong so fast. Nate should never have mentioned terrorists, even if it did make a good cover at the time. 

Everything turns. Eliot's not surprised to find himself on the side of the light again, though there are plenty of people who would be. Gabriel would bust a nut just thinking about it. Michael, too. Here's what Eliot's figured out as he's watched he world go 'round: the people getting their heads stomped on today will be the people doing the stomping tomorrow. The French Revolution was just all of human history condensed and jammed in fast forward.

They're outside the office door now. Eliot can see them on the security cameras, but he can't see their eyes. They're bundled up in riot gear, afraid, not knowing what they'll find. Ready to shoot.

It's not that the fibbies are bad guys, or that the justice system is corrupt, but justice overall isn't justice in specific. There's no forgiveness where maybe there ought to be, which is a thought that's gotten Eliot in trouble before. He got his accent from a lot further south than Kentucky, and in a much less forgiving climate.

Hardison is panicking into the comm line. Parker is biting her knuckles. Sophie is saying soothing things in a voice so convincing she must be lying. Nate is dead drunk in the van's passenger seat.

Eliot jumps out of the van and slams the door shut behind him with a metallic clang strangely similar to the sound of sword on sword.

"Hardison," he says. He knows he'll have to say it a few times more.

"Just saying, some planning, some anticipation--"

"Hardison."

"Are there air vents? I can learn to crawl through air vents real fast--"

"Hardison."

"Don't start telling me to calm down, I am calm, I am chill, I--" His voice is shaking.

"Hardison. You need to break the window."

There's a crash from above, and Eliot ducks under an awning as a rain of glass pours down from the seventh story.

"Good," Eliot says. "Now jump."

"Excuse me? What did you just say to me?"

"You trust me, right?"

"Enough to jump out a seventh floor window? Oh, hell no."

Eliot smiles to himself. "Count to five and then jump. It's gonna be okay."

Eliot stretches his arms up to the sky, flexes something interior, and pushes off. Four strong wingbeats take him to the fifth story. Hardison is already dropping toward him, arms reaching out. It's an easy catch.

"Did you get the data?" Eliot asks.

"Of course I got it. Who do you think you're dealing with here?" He's staring over Eliot's shoulder. "They're not white."

"Nope."

"Or black. I thought they'd be black or white."

"That's not how it works."

"They're--" Hardison frowns and touches the things on Eliot's wings that aren't really feathers. "They're the color of your damn hair. That is some freaky shit."

"You should see Lucifer's. Natural redhead. Got a killer temper on him."

Hardison laughs all the way down, and Eliot doesn't tell him it wasn't really a joke. He guesses no one will say one word about the wings unless he lets on like it might be okay. Maybe he will, someday.

Tonight, they find a motel room a hundred miles away, buy Nate some coffee, and sit up until dawn watching Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death. Tomorrow, Eliot and Nate are going to have a talk, but not now. Right now there are bad movies, pizza, scratchy motel bedspreads, and these people by his side and on his side.


End file.
